Comments on: Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter V – Adjectives

By: Miltus

Miltus — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:22:33 +0000

Isn’t there か missing in some of the following (Politeness part)?

憂鬱ではなった　→　憂鬱ではありませんでした／憂鬱ではなったです
憂鬱じゃなった　→　憂鬱じゃありませんでした／憂鬱じゃなったです

For example, shouldn’t 憂鬱じゃなった be 憂鬱じゃなかった?

Please forgive me if I’m wrong and/or just being stupid. ^^

By: Michx

Michx — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:46:26 +0000

This chapter is really hard to memorize!

By: Just some one

Just some one — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:27:35 +0000

wowww…. alot to memorise.

By: GFuhjeezy

GFuhjeezy — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:49:38 +0000

Hi! Just wanted to thank you for publishing this amazing website. I’m an American college student in a Japanese daigaku, and I have a huge-o test tomorrow on precisely this. You really helped me alot! Thanks, man!
<3

By: exalt dragon

exalt dragon — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 15:16:36 +0000

“大きい (ookii)　＝　大きな (ooki na)”
like “ookina yume suki desho”? Now where have I heard that before…hmmm..some song lyrics ah…

By: DarkMirage

DarkMirage — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:31:23 +0000

exalt: while you hear it all the time in anime, it’s not proper Japanese. The proper polite form is only “takakuarimasen”.

By: exalt dragon

exalt dragon — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:44:15 +0000

These Japanese-learning episodes are great..please continue doing these.
By the way, is there such a polite sentece such as takakunai desu(not tall?)

By: Ronin

Ronin — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:48:40 +0000

The pics sure show your love for the gal. ;)

By: DarkMirage

DarkMirage — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:13:54 +0000

Well, for native Japanese, both しない and しよう are used to indicate things that have yet to happen, thus they are taught under one group.

Whereas for foreign learners, it’s more intuitive to group する and しない together because they seem to be direct opposites. しよう to us is just a weird grammar structure that doesn’t really have an equivalent in English.

I guess the main problem lies with the fact that しない can mean either “don’t do” or “will not do” and Japanese doesn’t make that distinction.

By: hiroki

hiroki — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:00:26 +0000

To kwok:

Off course, a negative form can become also a question form.
But there is one point that you should be careful.

A-san:バスケットボールしませんか。(Let’s play basketball.)
B-chan:はい。しましょう。

C-kun:バスケットボールしないのですか。(Don’t you play basketball?)
D-san:はい。しません。

I think that this is not a ploblem whether polite or not.
Possibly my understandings are wrong although I an a japanese,
So I recommend you to ask about it to a teacher of japanese language.

As an unrelated note:
「ハルヒは人間じゃないんじゃないか。」
「ハルヒは人間じゃないじゃないか。」
I feel that these are completely different.
But I don’t have enough english ability to explain the difference.
Explaining japanese language is too difficult for me. ＿｜￣｜○